Tarp House starts to become Sunnywood

Because it's important for the lime-putty mortar not to cure too quickly, we had tarped each panel as it was completed, to protect it from sun wind. So as far as the neighbors could tell, despite all of our building efforts, we still had just a tarp house.

Today we removed the tarps from the panels that we had completed 30 or more days ago (time enough for initial curing): a total of 5 panels. Even though these earlier panels, as the "learning walls," incorporate all of everyone's mistakes, they are still awesome. I can't wait to live in this house.

10th panel is done!!!

As of 5:30 yesterday (Sunday, 9/20) eve. This panel took 16 batches and 3 days for Joe and me, with Heidi working with us for about half of that time. We had our first real frost Saturday night, so we'll have to wait and see if and how that affected the fresh mortar. All of the panels are now tarped and curing. Stay tuned for details and photos about mixing lime putty and mortar, setting window frames, using bottles and other decorative features, techniques for top work, comments people have made, and more.

Going for 10!

Okay, due to popular demand (i.e., both Joe and I think it's a good idea), we have completed panel 9 and begun #10! We have been very lucky to have Heidi back to help us. It took 19 batches and 4 and a half days for panel 9, but the big window frame took a lot more preparation and handling than the smaller frames (that will be another post: how 2 people lift and set these massive frames). Our plan is to be done with the 10th panel, if we push it, by the end of the day on Sunday. Or Monday.

We had a light frost in some spots last night, but covered the new work with tarp.

Trapped in cordwood

Our long silence does not mean that we've finally mortared ourselves into our walls! We're just in a building frenzy, trying to complete as much wall area as possible before the calendar puts an end to it. After that we'll update this blog with detail and process notes and photos.

We finished the 8th panel on Saturday the 12th. We could move in for the winter with 8 panels, as that would give us three "bays" closed in, if we install a temporary wall at the west end of the completed panels. But we made so much progress on the 9th panel yesterday (we're getting better at this, and faster*), that we are now considering the possibility of a 10th, which would give us 4 bays---all of our living area except the utility and project rooms.

See the rough floor plan below. The gray exterior border represents the 18" cordwood wall. The small black rectangles are posts; there are a total of 14 cordwood panels between the posts. We have completed the panels bracketed with red: three on the north, three on the south, and the two large east panels. As of yesterday, we had about a third of the cordwood done on the 9th panel (the next south-facing panel). If we complete another north panel, making 10, we can move our temporary wall west by an entire set of posts.

We've extended our "stop" date to the 19th, which is surely pushing it in terms of approaching frosts. What do you think: is it worth taking a chance that frost might affect the set of the lime mortar?



*Joe and I, working alone, mixed and laid up six batches of mortar, in addition to cleaning some logs and sifting some sand.